The Challenge of Urban Freight Transport

The Challenge of Urban Freight Transport ‘Challenging Future Transport Planning’ SustAccess inspiration seminar Gothenburg, Sweden – 29 March 2007 Sönke Behrends, M.Sc., Division for Logistics and Transportation, Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden

Outline • Why urban transport? • European Urban Transport Policy • The challenge of urban freight transport • Experiences from BUSTRIP • Results from BUSTRIP • Conclusions

Why urban transport? • Urban areas are vital to the economic, environmental and social future of the EU • Urban mobility contributes both to economic efficiency and to the quality of life urban population • Urban mobility is increasingly challenged by negativ impacts of transport •  How to increase mobility while reducing congestion, accidents, air pollution and noise is a common challenge to all major cities

European Urban Transport Policy • White Paper on European Transport Policy (2001) • Recognizes the hughe upsurge in traffic in towns and the related problems of pollution, congestion and safety • Hiding behind principle of subsidiarity: Comission confines itself to promote good pracice • White Paper Mid-Term Review (2006) • Green Paper on Urban Transport (2007) to identify added value for local initiatives at EU level • Strategy on the Urban Environment (2006) • Importance of high quality urban areas in delivering the objectives of the EU Lisbon Strategy • Transport plays a key role in the sustainable development of cities • The commission stronlgy recommends local authorities to develop and implement Sustainable Urban Transport Plans (SUTP) • SUTP concept developed by Expert Working Group on Sustainable Urban Transport Plans (2004)  Urban Transport is a priority for the EU Commission in 2007

Authority borders Policy levels Sectoral Planning Land-use pl. National EU Regional transport pl. social pl. National Regional Local environm. pl. Local economic pl. Sustainable Urban Transport Plans Current institutional planning approach • Drivers: Ongoing transformation processes of society and economy increase the need for mobility • Impacts: Transport growth implies substantial negative effects on all sectors of city life • Responses: The current instituational planning approach is not able to cope with the problems

Vertical integration of Policy levels Spatial integration across authority borders Horizontal integration between transport and other sectors EU transport pl. National social pl. National Regional Regional Land-use pl. Local environm. pl. Local economic pl. SUTP (Goal) Sustainable Urban Transport Plans Sustainable urban transport • SUTP is a planning instrument to systematically move the city towards more sustainable transport

The BUSTRIP project Baltic Urban Sustainable Transport Implementation & Planning • 1st project to refine, test and implement Sustainable Urban Transport Plans • BUSTRIP includes • Peer Review of the Urban Transport Systems in 12 Baltic Sea Region (BSR) cities; • Development of Sustainable Urban Transport Plans (SUTP’s); • Implementation Pilot Actions in each city www.bustrip-project.net

Sundsvall Kouvola region UBC EnvCom &Turku Örebro Tartu UBC TransCom, Chalmers & Göteborg Pärnu Liepaja Kaunas Vilnius Gdynia Bremen

Peer Review Findings • Freight transport is not a high policy or action priority for many cities but is perhaps one of the biggest threats • Freight movements contribute significantly to the negative impacts • 10% of all traffic movements • 20-30% of all vehicle km • 16-50% of emissions of air pollutants • High ambitions to become a “logistics centre” without understanding the implications arising from increasing logistics activities • Competition between cities for new businesses undermines the cities sustainable transport efforts • Evidence of difficulty in finding solutions – attempts to consolidate and coordinate distribution activities failed

Pilot Action Experiences Örebro: Urban freight distribution consolidation • Background: A trail to consolidate deliveries by organizing cooperation among distribution companies failed due to lack of participation • New approach: Coordinate the activities of the shop keepers (freight delivery customers) • Experiences • Chamber of Commerce and distributors supported project • Initially, shopkeepers showed interest but lost it during the planning phase of the project. • Due to lack of participation the project has been ended.

Pilot Action Experiences Örebro: Urban freight distribution consolidation ”Lessons learnt”: Shopkeepers have… • …no willingness to change freight delivery patterns • ”Freight transport in city centre is no problem” • The majority of shopkeepers receive only few deliveries • There are no direct incentives for shopkeepers • …no possibilities to change freight delivery patterns • Many shops with many deliveries are part of a chain and their deliveries are organised centrally for the whole chain • Some shops with a broad range of products receive their deliveries from several suppliers that use different distributors

Results from BUSTRIP • Knowledge and awareness rising for freight transport in cities • More focus on evaluation and dissemination. Failure projects and underlying reasons should be presented as frequent as the successful ones. • Involve all actors and stakeholders • Combination of incentives and restrictions

Conclusions • Urban mobilty has a crucial function for the EU and is highly challenged by unwanted effects of urban transport • Transport planning in cities is focused on passenger transport. Urban freight transport is a significant threat and needs a higher policy and action priority • SUTP is an integrated planning approach to systematically move towards more sustainable transport • Urban transport is a priority for the EU Commission in 2007 (Green Paper on Urban Transport). The EU Commission recognizes the importance of integrated planning approaches and the relevancy of urban freight transport. • The involved actors in urban freight transport should not ignore the problem but need to realize that they are part of it.

Thank you for your attention!Sönke Behrends, M.Sc., behrends@chalmers.se Division for Logistics and Transportation, Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden Welcome to Final Conference in Turku, Finland 7-9 November 2007 www.bustrip-project.net

Why do freight projects fail? The importance of systematic dissemination of obstacles and failures in pilot actions in sustainable urban freight distribution Paper by Maria Lindholm, M.Sc. and Magnus Blinge, Ph.D., Chalmers University of Technology, Division for Logistics and Transportation Conclusions • Rumours and negative experiences • Insufficient evaluation and dissemination • Poor knowledge or insufficient staffing within cities • ”Bottom-up” or ”Top-down” approach • Limitation to incentives

Conclusions • Knowledge and awareness rising for freight transport in cities • More focus on evaluation and dissemination. Failure projects and underlying reasons should be presented as frequent as the successful ones. • Involve all actors and stakeholders • Short-term projects need a long-term perspective • Combination of incentives and restrictions

The Challenge of Urban Freight Transport